In real money poker games the preflop has a capital importance. We are talking about a kind of game that is perceived differently, that awakens other sensations among those who enjoy playing poker and that allows them, if they do it well, to win a considerable sum of cash.
Each of the phases after the preflop also has an unquestionable weight in poker games, but the basis of the action is here, in the preflop. That is what makes it so important to make a proper reading of the game from the beginning, taking into account that cash games are especially frenetic and whose pace has nothing to do with that of a tournament.
Poker Strategy for Cash Games: how to play preflop
Let’s get to the heart of the matter: the poker cash game strategy. To know how to approach your game in a cash game, you must understand this type of game as a whole. What you do preflop will have consequences throughout the game and on every subsequent street that follows. Because if you make a mistake preflop, it will be difficult to reverse it to try to improve the perception that others have of you.
Cash games are games where appearance is everything. This, together with the pace of the game, means that decision making must be quick and based on a few facts. That is why it is so important to control the tells, or even use them to your advantage to convey what you want to convey to confuse your opponents and manipulate their game.
The basis of Texas Hold’em Cash Games strategy is: preflop, you should never bet more than four times the big blind plus one times the value of the big blind for each limper. This is the golden rule for betting under control and not to disrupt your stack at the first hand. Because crossing this threshold puts us in a position of high risk and low profitability, because we will be exposed to significant losses and huge profits, compared to the risk-profit balance that is achieved by betting within the limits of the rule.
One of the strategic bases of cash games is that we have to raise the bet if we open the pot. This will act as a natural selector in order to make a first selection of the opponents, analyze their reactions and see how they approach their game, which can be very helpful in later streets.
The check-raise is a good option to let the player who has raised speak, something that will surely happen when you make the first raise. If this happens, measure your steps well because you don’t have to start playing as if you were alone. Always be wary when you perceive that they are giving you a free hand to play, because what they will be thinking is “let’s see what you want to do and I can cover myself knowing what you intend to do”. Radiographing your game that way is suicide.
Cash game poker strategy: aspects to consider
Something that can also apply to any style of play and strategic basis in a cash game is that it is never recommended to limp, especially preflop. Calling the BB preflop is an indication that we have mediocre cards, or not good enough to go for the jackpot, which leaves us exposed.
One of the best poker cash game tips we can teach you: limping is only good if we play against blinds that are bad postflop players, if in a multiplayer pot we have connected cards, or if, with a good hand, we think that whoever is talking behind us is going to raise.
Being a check-raiser is convenient when you intersperse that move with other moves that keep your game opaque. However, in itself, the check-raise is a good method to make the opponent cannot read well our way of playing because it invites him to think that we do not have good cards and we can confuse him with a raise against the flop.
Some other cash game poker tips: in those games that have a lower limit, a re-raise usually means that we are facing premium cards. It may also happen that we see that our opponent starts to expose us too much to re-raises. If you perceive that a player is abusing re-raises, it is either due to an erroneous reading on our part, in which something is escaping us and we do not know where the other player is playing, or it may be because we need to extend our push range.
In the case that we do the re-raise ourselves, be careful. Doing it when it is not our turn will leave us very sold. It is something that is only advisable to do when we have a crushing premium hand. Only then it pays to triple the bet to put the opponents against the wall, to force them to make a mistake or abandon the hand.
Do you want to get the best poker strategy for cash games? Read the other articles dedicated to cash games:
